Electronic mailboxes are used to store electronic mail (email) messages. Electronic mailboxes are connected to the Internet to enable users to send and receive incoming and outgoing email messages. These mailboxes may also be extended to deliver email to mobile wireless communication devices via wireless networks. In the case of a corporation, electronic mailboxes are typically located on email servers at the corporation. On the other hand, mailboxes for small businesses or individuals are typically located on Internet service provider (ISP) email servers.
Mail user agents (MUAs) are applications which use a technique called polling to relay messages from the mail server to the mail program at a user's computer or mobile wireless communications device. An MUA is a program running either on a user's personal computing device (mobile or stationary), or on a shared email relay server that checks for new mail on behalf of a multitude of such users. More particularly, polling is the retrieval of incoming messages from other users at the mail server and delivery of these messages to the user's mailbox.
An email relay server may be particularly appropriate where emails need to be relayed to wireless communications devices. This is because having a wireless communications device, such as a cellular device, polling an email server(s) via a cellular network may result in increased usage charges for users as well as consumption of network resources. Thus, some email systems use an email relay server that checks one or more electronic user mailboxes for a given user, and provides a notification message to the user's wireless communications device when a new email message(s) is available. The wireless communications device then polls the email relay server for the new email message(s), which therefore reduces the amount of wireless communications resources consumed by the device.
One particularly convenient approach to providing email notifications is through short message service (SMS) messages. SMS is a system that is used for sending short text messages (i.e., 160 characters or less) over wireless networks. Many cellular devices and cellular network carriers support SMS messaging. Yet, such carriers also typically charge users for SMS text messaging. Using SMS notifications to prompt a wireless communications device to poll for new messages may be problematic in that it could result in significant SMS messaging charges for users.
Moreover, such, SMS notification messages may not be displayed by wireless communications devices like a regular SMS text message, since the device automatically responds to such messages (i.e., polls for the new email messages) without involving the user. Users may be particularly displeased with being charged for SMS messages they did not even know they were receiving.